12/6    An idiot (who happens to be the architect) in our group keeps using
        PC for development and it appears that every single indentation is
        tabs (probably a VisualJ or JDeveloper guy). How do I make my emacs
        recognize tabs so that emacs will display them correctly ? Thanks.
        \_ add (setq default-tab-width 4) to your .emacs file to set tab stops
           to every 4 spaces, or better yet, read the help for the "untabify"
           function.
        \_ The coding standard for your project should define how wide a
           tab stop is.  If you find that width painful to look at, then
           the use of tabs for indentation will allow you to easily view
           it with a different tab width (though you will still be
           responsible for ensuring that your code looks right when
           viewed with the standard tab width; your coding standard should
           also define the maximum permissible line length, which you
           would then need to be more careful of).  I suggest you look at
           your project's coding standard and find out which one of you is
           right -- Indenting with 8-character-wide tabs to a maximum of
           80 characters is *very* common (at least among unix kernels).
           Where I work, he'd be right, you'd be wrong, and you'd be required
           to go through and correct everything you'd tabbed with spaces.
           \_ I had a simular situation with some people I'm working with
              via CVS.  Eventually we decided to indent with spaces,
              since a space is always a space, but a tab can look different
              in different environments.  --PeterM
           \_ This is all fine and good but if the architect doesn't buy
              into it from the get go, you might as well give up. Cuz if
              he isn't sticking to the coding standards no one else will.
              Some people could care less what code looks like.